THE PRESIDENCY by HUGH SIDEY: LIKE SUNDAY MORNING

It was a little like Sunday morning. The choir sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Bishop William Cannon delivered some Methodist thunder. There was wisdom from the prophet Micah. Jimmy led the discussion about hope, humility and sacrifice. Archbishop John Roach closed the service with a touch of Roman Catholic poetry. Then Jimmy and Rosalynn walked hand in hand back home down the avenue.

Not all of Nelson Rockefeller’s millions had been able to buy the moment for himself. The power and prestige of Teddy Kennedy’s family were buried and, for the moment at least, almost forgotten.

In its majestic simplicity, the Inaugural was, finally, a celebration of the human spirit—one in which courtesy meant more than wealth, and personal warmth meant more than position. If it was an illusion, at least it was a pleasant one.

The big question around Washington when the music died and President Carter got down to work: How long would the world let us continue on this lovely jag? More to the point, would Carter be able to nurture this spirit now and help Americans find one another? It was Richard Nixon, after all, who preached the celebration of “simple things” from the same place eight years ago—and then limousined down to the White House and turned it into an imperial palace. Despite his humble background, Lyndon Johnson was a creature of power, and when he finally stood on the Capitol steps to be sworn in as President on his own right, he loomed large over the small people in the street below. That is the way he liked it to be. Most people watched John Kennedy as if he were a matinee idol. They were awed and entertained but realized that his was a special preserve that could not be shared without the proper certification of family, school and bank balance. Leadership was seen at the top. Can it come from the bottom?

Something may be moving to focus better the human dimensions of our society so as to erase barriers of birth and environment. For long, the struggle was about material needs. That is still the struggle in important ways. But the biggest battles of want have been won. Maybe Jimmy Carter is part of the beginning in refocusing our concerns on the intangibles of freedom, on the quality of our thoughts and actions.

Carter may be more the result of a changing national mood than the leader of it. The kids who swarmed over the Washington Mall a few years ago, protesting war and racial discrimination, brought part of the message. So did Gerald Ford, the Grand Rapids Eagle Scout who by sheer decency glued a shattered people back to stability.

It all seemed to flow together there on the Inaugural stand. The event was so unspectacular and unpretentious that it was, in its way, quite profound. The bruised and battered Hubert Humphrey, who once lamented that the breakdown in good manners in the nation might portend a larger collapse of society, moved around, patting Amy, bussing Miss Lillian, twinkling at Billy, devoid of envy and jealousy or the thought that he should be the one taking the oath. When Jerry Ford came down the Capitol stairs to take his seat, it occurred to more than one person that if another vote for President could have been held that instant across the nation, Jerry would have won. But it was over for him. The old center from the University of Michigan, who once explained that he played hard and then made friends no matter what the score, left all that good will for his successor.

There is no way to measure the impact of the new President when he thanked the former President for that legacy. But surely it is worth several billion dollars of the national budget or a few megatons in the nuclear arsenal.

The world halted a few seconds while Amy’s parents buttoned up her coat so she could walk in the parade. And the friends of Ford, grown men and women, could have given no more meaningful farewell to Jerry and Betty Ford than the tears they openly let slide down their cheeks.

Little was said or done on Inaugural Day that will glitter in the pages of history. But that day could be a piece of something bigger that will change the world.